THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY REVIEW: AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE*

Last week, we marked the 40th anniversary of the atomic age. On July 16, 1945, the first test of a nuclear explosive at Alamogordo, New Mexico, demonstrated a new weapon of unprecedented destructiveness. Throughout the ensuing decades, the community of nations has faced the challenge of finding ways to neutralize the military threat of the atom while harnessing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Both bilateral and multilateral arms control and disarmament negotiations have been undertaken. Their goal has been, and remains, the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, and in the interim at least drastic reductions of nuclear arsenals to ensure greater stability and safety for all countries. At the same time, peaceful nuclear cooperation around the world, in areas ranging from nuclear power generation to nuclear medicine, has burgeoned since President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace Program was initiated in 1953. In addition, the world's nations have adopted increasingly stringent measures to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries. Since its entry into force in March 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Proliteration of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) has played a central part in this decades-long endeavor. The Treaty's specific undertakings have been carefully crafted to serve its three major objectives. The first, which was the driving force behind the initial push for the NPT, is to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons. The second is to foster peaceful nuclear cooperation under safeguards. The third objective, added during the multilateral negotiation of the NPT, is to encourage good faith negotiations to end the nuclear arms race with a view to general and complete disarmament.